How I lost so much, but didn't lose my smile
by Hadriani
Summary: Now a series of Kataang stories. Chapter 2: Start of a two-, maybe threeshot. Will update before the week's end. Along the way, she heard Aang trying to say something to her, faint mumblings starting with “Fire, fire everywhere”. How was that possible?
1. Chapter 1

A short Kataang fanfic with both Aang and Katara's point of view in it. It takes place in between 312: The Western Air Temple and 313: The Firebending Masters.

_Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender. I do own some cookies though. But those are reserved for the reviewers!_

**[Katara's POV**

"What? We don't have any food anymore?" Sokka exclaimed

"Why the big fuzz? We'll just go on an trip to find some food on the grounds above this tempel" I said.

"Well, what are we waiting for then?" A new look appeared on the face of my brother. It reminded me of a predator lurking it's prey.

"Hold on, party people. I'm not going anywhere. My feet still hurt to much. You go without me." Toph said. This was very understandable, as Zuko only burned her feet the day before yesterday.

"You're not coming either, Zuko. Teo, Toph, Haru and the Duke, I trust that you make sure he doens't sneak away." I needed to be sure Zuko wouldn't get out of the Western Air Tempel. The less chance he recieved to turn his back on us again, the safer it is for the lot of us.

"Come on, as if I would try to sneak away. Can't you trust me?" The Firenation prince questioned out loud.

"No, I can't" I replied in a very sincere way and on top of it I gave him a cold stare. I'm _never _going to let him forget what he has done to us.

"And why are we still standing here? Let's go!" Sokka said. He snatched his backpack and raced for the higher grounds.

"Hey, can't you even wait up for Aang and I? Come on Aang. We have to leave now if we want to catch up with him."

We made for the higher grounds and caught up with Sokka halfway there. His enthusiasm for food had been conquered by the many stairs on the way out. Once out on the field again, Sokka suggested that he would try to hunt himself some meat and that Aang and I could find some berries or edible plants. Without even giving us a chance to reply, he left with an even bigger grin on his face.

I considered myself to be quite experienced in the field of food gathering, after all, I had always been the one to take care of the food all this time.

"There, those roots are edible, Aang." I called Aang over and started to pull out some of them, but was very surprised to feel my hands hurting soon after I touched one of them. "Aah!" I exclaimed.

"What, what happened?" Aang said worriedly "Oh, I see. You thought those were Turnips, didn't you?"

"Yes. Why do they sting like that?" I gasped and looked at my both hands. They started to become red.

"It's because they're not Turnips. Those are Monkshood. They only grow around the Western Air Tempel and nowhere else. That's why they called them Monkshood." Aang explained. "Let me have a look at those." he said, taking my hands into his.

The sensation of his hands touching mine was pleasant, but my palms still hurt. "How do you know that? I always thought you weren't that fond of food gathering." I asked.

"I'm not", he smirked, "but when I spent a year at this temple, the monks thought me about the plants and animals around the temple, according to the costums. You see, they use it to teach young monks about the balance in nature. This plant is a very good example of that, the antidote for the acid on the outer shell of the root is to be found within the root itself, because it has to protect itself from it, too." He opened my water flask and used a small amount of water to make an incision in the root. A liquid came free, which he bended onto my hands. They instantly felt better.

"Thanks" I said, impressed with his knowledge about the plants. "You know, I keep forgetting you have been here before. The temple must have been so pretty back then."

"Yes.. It was" He said sadly.

_Stupid, I'm stupid! Why did I have to remind him of the airbenders?_ "I'm so sorry, Aang".

"No, it's okay. It's just that... The place is so different and just like with the other airtemples, the people seem to have forgotten about the monks that used to live in there. I do not want them to be forgotten, but there is nothing I can do. It's even harder to face the fact that everyone had accepted that all airbenders were gone."

I pulled him in for a hug. He had gone through so much and it can take a lot of time before some things in our mind can be put at rest. _Sometimes, it even takes forever_, she thought of Zuko. "The Firenation has done some very awful things, but don't forget, we're going to stop this war and then we will get the chance to restore balance and repopulate the Air Nomads" I blushed at my last sentence. It hadn't come out very well and the thought of me and Aang repopulating the Air Nomads was very awkward. "I mean, you will get the chance to repopulate the Air Nomads" I quickly corrected myself, silently thanking the fact that Aang's face was next to mine, not in front of it, so he could not see my blush.

After Aang had processed the awkward thought of him and Katara "repopulating", he was smiled. "You're right, Katara. We're going to fix this. We're going to bring back balance in the world and ... I'll repopulate the Air Nomads" he said, somewhat teasingly stressing the ' I '. He continued enjoying hugging Katara. It was to nice to break it up, so he didn't. Closing his eyes, he rested the side of his head against hers. "Thanks, Katara".

"You're welcome" I whispered, enjoying the hug too. Though, to avoid an awkward moment, I broke it off and tried to chance the subject. "So, this Monkshood, is it edible?"

"Yes, that is, if you remove the stingy outside. It even was a local specialty in the temple. I know the recipe, all we need is water and another herb that can be found around here too." He answered.

After we had gathered enough of the Monkshood, we searched for the herb. Through all the things that had happened at the Day Of Black Sun, I had forgotten how much I liked spending time with Aang. We didn't do things like this nearly enough in my opinion. In fact, we hadn't been this close since his departure from the submarine just before the invasion.. I felt my cheeks going red at the thought. That moment had confused me. Well, not the moment itself, but Aang's behavior afterwards. He acted as if it had never happened. I silently made myself promise that I would ask him about it.

**[AANG'S POV**

We talked about some random things. I wanted to make this moment take as long as I could. Therefor I didn't say anything the previous two times when I spotted the herb we were looking for. But it had been quite some time, so I informed of the herb laying only a few yards in front of us. "There, that should be enough", I said while putting it in her basket. We returned to the entrance to the tunnel, waiting for Sokka to join us. "He must be finished by now, I'm sure he'll be here soon." Katara seemed to be thinking about something serious. "What are you thinking about?" I asked.

"Aang.." She said "I want to ask you something, do you mind?"

"Not at all, why would I?" I replied, slightly worried.

"You know, right before the invasion, on that submarine..." Katara started looking at the ground. I could see her blush though. I blushed too. It must have confused her a bit. I decided to jump in and took her hands in mine.

"I know what you mean." I interrupted. I started blushing too, to my despise "Before the invasion I was... different." I explained. "All the things that happened on that day kind of had an impact on me. Suddenly, everything had changed and I had to direct my thoughts to the new challenges..." Now I had started looking down. I wasn't proud of the way that I had treated Katara after I had kissed her, but still I was telling the truth. With the failing of the invasion and Zuko joining the group, everything suddenly became more complicated. "But I want you to know that I'm still the same. I still feel the same way." And with that, I squeezed her hands lightly.

Katara seemed relieved, as far as I could tell from the corner of my eye. I still wasn't facing her. "I'm glad to hear that, Aang." She squeezed back.

At that moment Sokka arrived. Katara and I quickly pulled our hands back and tried to look casually. There really wasn't any need for it though, Sokka seemed to only have eyes for the two bodies he held in his hands. "Hmmmm, dinner" He began to drool. "I can already smell them being roasted" his drooling continued, seemingly multiplied. "Let's get them cookin'! Race you guys down!" And just as simple as that he started running down the stairs that led to the temple.

"I guess we should head back" I said.

"Yeah, I guess so..." Katara replied. "Thanks, Aang" and she placed a brief kiss on my left cheek, holding the other in her hand.

Needless to say I blushed madly. I took the hand that was holding my cheek and lead its holder down the stairs. It was just as Katara had said. Though I had lost so much in the past one hundred years, there were also things I had gained. And above all those things, I liked her the most.

I was struck out of my thinking by the sound of something or someone hitting the floor. After some curses, I could faintly hear Sokka's voice saying "I'm okay!".

**A/N: oh well, there goes my first fanfic! Hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! If you have any comment, please, do let me know. It would help me soooo much :-)**

**And if anyone is wondering why I put the stairs to the higher grounds in, even while they're not in the series, I just think there ought to be a stairway like that lol.**

**Like I stated in the A/N at the beginning of the story; reviewers get (virtual) cookies:-P**

**Cheers!**


	2. Stealing The Sun Pt 1

**AN: Start of a two, maybe threeshot. I will only post the next parts after I received at least 5 reviews for this chapter! Yes, I _am_ mean.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender.**

"Aang?! Aang?!!"

Nothing.

She tried yet another door of the enormous palace. With every grip on a doorknob she reminded herself of her blood-stained hands. She, Sokka and Toph had faced Azula. The latter one had fought very fierce and seemed to have made her goal to damage her enemies as much as she could before she would get captured, because she knew she was fighting a losing battle. Azula had done a pretty good job though, Toph had to be taken to the infirmary by Sokka. Katara herself suffered from some fairly serious wounds too, but after delivering the captured Azula to the temporarily headquarters of the invasion force, she immediately went back to the palace to look for Aang.

"Aang?! Are you in here?"

Nothing again

_Oh please dear spirits, let him be okay. I would give anything for him to be all right. _

In her confusion Katara doubled and even tripled a number of rooms, her hope fading and despair growing.

_I just don't know what I would do if something happened to him..._

She tried to swallow the heavy lump in her throat, without succeeding. She had searched through the throne room, the hallways, the bedrooms.. How big could one palace be? She opened yet another door and hastingly went inside screaming for Aang again. Somehow, this room seemed different from all the others, even the throne room. It had some sort of a mystique air around it, not to mention it was torn apart and ruined entirely.

_This must be where the fight had taken place_.

After absorbing the shock of the chamber, she noticed a huge hole in the back wall, viewing on to the palace gardens.

_I beg you, spirits, let him not be the one who fell. Please._

She almost didn't dare to look down, but her curiosity had taken the lead and she peaked past the hole and saw the Firelord laying in the grass. Dead.

_It's not him!_ Was the first thought that raced to her mind. Only secondly did she see that it was the Firelord of the almighty Fire Nation laying dead beneath her eyes. Aang had succeeded, but was nowhere to be found. With newfound hope, she cried our once again, but harder and more passionately than before.

"Aang?! Are you here?"

She could hear the faintest groan coming from what seemed to be a pile of rubble. She hastily began digging into it and after a few thrusts she had uncovered the Avatar's chest and started to dig him out entirely, followed by more groans coming from Aang. She gasped at the state he was in. He didn't look good and if she didn't hurry it could maybe be too late for him.

_I'm not going to let that happen_

She instantly took a handful of water from her flask and attended to the more serious wounds before giving attention to the countless second degree burnings over his entire body. How was this possible? He had fought during the eclipse, hadn't he? She looked around again and she saw countless bodies of firebenders, either just knocked down or killed in combat. They had obviously been firebending, because there was no melee weapon of any kind to be found. So they had somehow anticipated to the eclipse? She knew it had worked on the other firebenders across the city. She was very puzzled on the clear contradiction before her eyes.

She took Aang's shivering and aching body into her arms and started running back as fast and light-footed as she could.

_Just try not to hurt him more, Katara. Focus now and get him through. You need him to get through this.You need him._

Along the way, she heard Aang trying to say something to her, faint mumblings starting with "Fire, fire everywhere". How was that possible? The eclipse was going on through the whole fight, she thought. It was a good thing it had lasted two hours. She would hear about it later, she told herself. First, she had to take care of Aang.

"Ssh Aang, it's ok. Be silent for now. I'm bringing you to our command post. There you will get all the healing you need"

Katara's legs ached in every muscle she had, caused by the fast pace she was running at, but she didn't notice. Still, it seemed that seconds went by at the speed of ages. It didn't matter though, she was determined to get him to safety. Finally arriving at the command post and seeing to it that there were healers doing there very best for Aang, she felt her legs become numb. She fell back into a chair. The command post was all the way by the shoreline, because there was water nearby, used for both healing and treating burned wounds by non-healers.

_He's safe. By all spirits, he's safe..._

Katara instantly closed her eyes and almost just as instantly fell asleep. She was fatigued. Every single bit of energy drain from her body. Time to heal. Time to mend.

**AN: The firebending during the eclipse will be explained in the next chapter!**


End file.
